Parshat Eikev

This week’s parsha is Parshat Eikev đź“–

The Torah is very much misunderstood. It is not just instructions and laws; it is also full of brachot – just like in the opening to this week’s parsha.

Hashem tells us that if we listen to His rules and guard them, He will protect us, He will love us, He will make us many, He will give us a livelihood, and He will make sure we suffer no illness. How beautiful!

One of the purposes of the Torah is to provide answers to questions in our lives. It is to make our life better. From it we can learn how to handle a marriage, raise the best children and to behave in business and with others. It’s our instruction manual for life.

The word Eikev, the name of our parsha, is difficult to translate. It can mean “to heed” or to “obey”. It can also, according to Rashi, mean the heel of a person’s foot.

What’s the connection?

Rashi explains that the pasuk is talking about people who step on mitzvot with their heels. He is saying people look at some mitzvot and may feel that they aren’t important.

Accordingly, people don’t pay much attention to them. They consider some mitzvot “smaller”. But Hashem is telling us that if we do the small “insignificant” mitzvot, He will shower us with blessings.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to get such blessings from doing the bigger mitzvot?

From this, our Sages teach us that we cannot just focus on the big, grand gestures. We can’t only focus on obtaining honour for doing the big mitzvot and then expect acknowledgement and praise.

We can’t go through life with the “look at me, look at what i did” attitude. Hashem is saying that it is more valuable to be consistent in our daily behaviours, our daily mitzvot.

How?

By doing small everyday things to follow the Torah and to make them. By doing the “small” mitzvot with care, we will know that the big things that follow will be coming from the right place, not from ego.

How can the pasuk tell us about the blessings we will get if we do mitzvot if we know we do not get rewards for mitzvot in this world? The Chatam Sofer explains that the blessing stated above will come from the wanting to do and the effort that goes into the mitzvot. The “walk” to the mitzvah.

Hashem is asking us to go in His ways and to love Him “with all your heart and soul” (as we read last week in the Shema) because when we do, it will bring us enormous success. We need to remember to not be a small person who only focuses on the big things but a big person who focuses on the small things.

✨ *Shabbat Shalom* ✨